A network file system typically includes a collection of computing systems connected to a network that distributes data across a plethora of network storage media devices. The network storage devices may include, for example, network-attached storage (NAS), remote file server, i.e., one using NFS (Network File System) or CIFS (Common Internet File System) protocols, or a remote storage array via a storage-area network (SAN), or via a standard network, e.g., using the iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) protocol. Further, flash memory could be used to replace the hard disks for network storage media devices. In another example, the system hardware may also include, or is connected to, central processing unit (CPU(s)) which may be a single processor, or two or more cooperating processors in a known multiprocessor arrangement, a microprocessor, or one or more multi-core processors, conventional registers, interrupt handling circuitry, a clock and etc. Accordingly, a network file system may have a large number of network storage media devices.
A computing device may have difficulty accessing and synchronizing resources transparently with a large amount of network storage capacity across various network storage media devices. For example, a computing device may not be able to fully access online storage services which provide network storage capacity due to limited local hardware storage capacity. In addition, online or network storage services are static storage services and do not provide synchronization of data transparently across network storage media devices. In order for a computing device to have access to a large capacity of storage and synchronize resources transparently across a large number of network storage media devices, the computing device may have to mount the file system to its local hardware storage. Furthermore, an administrator or an operating system may have to recognize each change in the data from a network storage media device, thereby increasing latency and complexity. Due to the large number of network storage media devices and synchronization of data transparently across these network storage media devices, a computing device may have a difficult and expensive process of accessing and synchronizing resources transparently across a large amount of network storage media devices.